Every Choice a Woman Makes Sends a Message

In Every Choice A Woman Makes Sends A Message, Deborah Tannen makes the claim that women are marked. She also claims that while women are marked, men are unmarked. Dr. Tannen supports her claims using examples of clothing, hairstyles, makeup, and their identities. I believe that women do not have the same freedom of being unmarked as men do. The idea of being marked “refers to the way language alters the base meaning of a …

…to be unmarked as men do. Every choice a woman makes does indeed tell a story about her. A man can just choose to blend into the crowd whenever he feels like it whereas a woman cannot. I think Dr. Tannen summarizes it best when she says, “Some days you just want to get dressed and go about your business. But if you’re a woman, you can’t, because there is no unmarked woman.”